By Jason and Alisha Hagey
I can count on one hand how many times I have given a standing ovation. Perhaps some would say that makes me stingy, but when I stand, I truly want it to mean something to all the creatives. Tonight, marked the third occasion of a much-deserved standing ovation. In Salt Lake City, at the University of Utah campus, Pioneer Theatre Company (PTC) created (what I consider to be) a masterpiece. The dialogue is fast and competitive, the content is relevant, and the time period, well, is 1882, and today, and sadly tomorrow.
Therese Stockman works as a doctor in a small Scandinavian town. A new, desperately needed business venture in the community might be contributing to a spreading illness, affecting citizens young and old. Stockman, her brother Peter, who happens to be the town’s mayor, and the local newspaper editor, Kristine Hovstad, wrestle with competing challenges pitting the local economy against the community’s welfare, all alongside a journalist’s obligation to inform.
If I hadn’t read interviews with Jeff Talbott (Playwright) I would have assumed The Messenger was a reaction to our current pandemic. Yet with prescient comprehension, Talbott wrote this in 2019 and workshopped it long before we heard whisperings of COVID-19. Talbott (who previously worked with PTC on his brilliant show ‘i’) explores humanity and relationships and the ugliness of hate and at the same time shows the power of hope. He looks at a town struggling to revitalize and on the brink of something that will revolutionize its economy. Yet that very thing, due to climate change brought on by industrialization, appears to be causing illness. We witness the struggle of morals. We see all sides. We can visualize ourselves on both sides of the issue. Yet the real villain is selfishness. Not fear; but greed that shows itself in dishonesty.
Loosely using Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, The Messenger is very relevant, truly moving, and a triumph. It isn’t easy, seeing multiple sides of an issue and not having a clear answer, but that is what makes this show so valuable a tool. We need to be reminded to look at all sides and really listen. Wes Grantom (Director) isn’t afraid of confronting hard issues. He makes us fall in love with the people, laughing with them and suffering through their struggles. Then the whole script shifts and we are off-kilter because our initial impressions and assumptions are just that, assumptions.
As you enter the theatre and look upon the magnificent set by Yoon Bae, your eyes are immediately arrested by the light and fog and turmoil happening above the stage. Brian Tovar (Lighting Design) creates real drama and interest. I have never seen anything like it before. It wasn’t loud, but the subtlety created a context for the drama that was to unfold. Likewise, Bae’s set (with its feeling of decay and former elegance) just works and blends so harmoniously. Bae also creates these incredible costumes that change the narrative of the characters. For instance, Einar Billing starts with patterns as he is more complex and by the end, he is in more stark solids. Peter Stockman also begins in hints of grey mixed with blacks only to become fully black and white by the end. The women wear contrasting colors that mirror the conflict happening within the brilliant staging. The costuming is perfect. I gasped aloud at some of the transitions as they themselves create a picture and character looming larger than life.
Will Van Dyke (Original music) creates music that is not one time period or another, but full of presence. Listening to the lyrics of the song as the show ended just fills one with passion and a longing for peace and human civility. Samantha Wooten (Hair and Makeup Designer) only enhances with her lovely take on hair and makeup. Together, the designers truly take on a new character of their own; one that is at once each of us and our future hope.
Ora Jones (Therese Stockman) commands attention. She’s powerful, a potent presence erupting on stage from the moment she comes through the door. Though her portrayal is fierce, she is a kind soul with a desire to help and to heal. Jones captures nuances of human emotions and intellectual reasoning, balancing the whole with impressive virtuosity. She does this so well that we, the audience, cannot help but feel reflected in her.
The entire ensemble that surrounds Jones is miraculous. Barzin Akhavan (Henrik Abelman) is loveable, pitiable, and empathetic. Grayson DeJesus (Einar Billing) reminds me of every young man trying his best to have it all: love and success. Mark H. Dold (Peter Stockman) seizes in both hands a love for his sister and for his city in a way that you believe this dichotomy, that he truly feels split in two by his loyalties but feels them with equal passion. Meredith Holzman (Kristine) just makes sense. Everything she does, every hope, every spoken word, comes across with genuine belief in what she’s doing. Turna Mete (Petra Stockman) has conflicts, personal and social, that she deftly handles while representing both the hopes and the fears of youth. Connor Mamaux-Partridge (Tobias), Marcello Say (Noah), Alexis Grace Thomsen (Marianne), and Victoria Wolfe (Elisabeth) rip through the fourth wall that usually protects us in a play and makes us part of the charged and frustrating debate that is our current zeitgeist.
Like Talbott’s previous work, The Messenger demands that you think – about yourself, your world, and your place in that world. Talbott requires someone who thinks. Period. And you cannot leave without caring, in some way, if you have been paying attention at all to the play. Talbott has this superb way of crafting a narrative that is, in so many ways, merely a mirror to our world and the multiple perspectives in it. The character Petra, amid the turmoil, is asked to write a treatise against a religious group in America. We don’t know which group and it doesn’t matter. Her character is not religious, but she refuses to lampoon them for writing a dialectic on the need for compassion and love because, as she says, faith and belief are the same things. And searching for human virtue is a virtue. In a time of great civil unrest and disquiet, may we all be like Petra and echo the playwright in finding civility and kindness, which is the true hope for all of us moving forward. The Messenger is a perfect play for today.
LANGUAGE: None.
SMOKING AND DRINKING: None.
SEX: None.
VIOLENCE: There are tense moments as the community protests, including a rock being thrown through a window.
FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: The Messenger is suitable for all ages, although children under age 10 may find it too advanced.
Watch a live stream of playwright Jeff Talbott hold a discussion and answer questions with the Saturday matinee audience. Live-stream to start January 15 at approximately 3:45 p.m. on our PTC Facebook page.
Pioneer Theatre Company presents The Messenger by Jeff Talbott
Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S 1400 E, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112
January 14 – January 29, 2022, Monday – Thursday 7:00 PM, Friday 7:30 PM, Saturday 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM
Tickets : $33-50
Contact: 801-581-6961
https://www.facebook.com/pioneertheatre/
https://pioneertheatre.org/
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